


love let the poison, bleed out of me. love let the love inside go free.

by beautifullybarbaric



Series: there is no place like home when you got no place to go [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Former title: "PM700", Gavin Reed Backstory, Gen, Ken Doll Android Anatomy | Androids Have No Genitalia (Detroit: Become Human), Mental Instability, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Pre-Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), i mean this fic is just snippets over a long period of time, its a fic about zlatko's monsters u kno what to expect damnit, no beta we die like men, nobody is okay, rating for violence, this is.... not a happy fic, yes!!! gavin is briefly in this fic guys!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-08-20 19:51:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20233438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifullybarbaric/pseuds/beautifullybarbaric
Summary: It... Couldn't? Why couldn't it protect its partner? That was irrational.A red wall flickered up in front of it. Do not use force. PM700 #126 872 542 reached out to touch it, and a strange... form... left its body to do so. The wall felt strange under its hands, like carpet but sharper. Prickling at its synthetic skin. It pulled its hands away from it. Lingering, hesitating.And it lashed out.PM700 #126 872 542 was supposed to be the perfect machine. A police officer. But deviancy comes hard, four whole years before the revolution. Jericho didn't even exist when she had woken up. She had nowhere. Nowhere to go, except for rumors of a man who could help her. But the rumors were falsehoods and deception. His house was a place of twisted metal and broken bodies, and she had nowhere else to go.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yeah its an oc sue me. im having some problems with Famed Infamy so thats on hiatus, but i still wanna write something lol.
> 
> New title is from "Free" by mother mother!

** _October 23rd, 2034_ **

"Hm."

PM700 #126 872 542 glanced at its assigned, human partner. The man was scowling at a tablet. Gray eyes narrowed as he rapidly swiped through their recent case file. He was quietly fuming, quickly becoming increasingly frustrated with whatever it was he was seeing.

"Are you alright, Detective?" It tried speaking to him gently, not wanting to make him any further upset.

"I don't like this case, Amy." Detective Reed sighed, setting down the tablet and rubbing his face.

PM700 #126 872 542's LED flashed red for a moment before it recollected itself. "I believe I have already told you that you do not have the authorization to assign a designation."

"Listen." He looked up at her from where he was sitting at his terminal. "When I was a kid, we named our phcking Roombas. You don't have to officially be 'Amy', or whatever, but I'm not gonna call you by a number. We have always had names for robots. Alexa, Cortana, Siri. And of course Chloe." Detective Reed gestured broadly. "Humans are just like that."

It looked away, LED spinning yellow and staying like that. The silence dragged out before PM700 #126 872 542 finally replied once more.

"What do you dislike about the case, Detective?" It dipped its head, pulling the tablet over to itself. It already knew the case. Armed robbery that had lead to two android cashiers deactivated, and one human dead. A third android was damaged, and two other humans were injured. The man who had committed the crime, one Kyle R. Sampson, was being hunted down by law enforcement. The public was angry over the dead woman, and the owner of the store wanted compensation for his broken androids. Time was ticking, and leads were flimsy.

"We have info that he is hiding out-" Detective Reed swiped over the screen to show her, even though she could have just interfaced with the tablet and downloaded everything that he was looking at. "Here." He pointed at a small map that showed a run-down former theater, now abandoned. "But our source is actual dogshit, and I have a feeling someone is going to get shot if we go there."

PM700 #126 872 542 tilted its head to the side. "I will ensure that you do not sustain physical injury."

"And you? What about _your _safety?" He was actually serious. It frowned and shook its head.

"I can be replaced. I am a machine." It tried to ignore the fact that Detective Reed made a face at it. A sour grimace. It did not understand why the Detective was so insistent on trying to keep it functional. PM700 #126 872 542 chalked it up to human irrationality. "We should go, Detective. Before Sampson leaves."

"Yeah. Sure." He muttered, folding his arms over his chest as he stood up. The man dug around on his desk for his keys. It didn't have to think twice before it moved an empty styrofoam coffee cup to reveal the keys. PM700 #126 872 542 picked them up and gently handed them to the human. "Thanks."

"You are welcome, Detective." It replied, folding its arms behind its back.

"You wanna ride shotgun?" He swung the keys around on his fingers, they clinked together metallically.

"I will ride in the passenger seat if that is what you prefer."

He muttered something, but PM700 #126 872 542's audio processors were not strong enough to pick up what he said, so it shrugged whatever he must have said off as they approached the car.

The old theater was very dilapidated. Chipped brick walls and crumbling exterior. Every single window and door was boarded up, except for one. The wooden boards that had covered a back door had been ripped off very recently. It had once been a small venue for seeing plays and musicals. The cast was small and recurring, often the same group of people would play one production and would be in the one following that. Old reviews plucked off of the internet provided that when it had been still running, the shows were praised for being brilliant on a low budget with cheap tickets.

Detective Reed did not find this information interesting at all as PM700 #126 872 542 funneled it to him. He just shrugged the facts off. It tried not to be bothered by this. Androids could not feel bothered. Instead, it turned its head to examine a broken board that laid at its feet. It gingerly picked it up, turning it over in its hands as the Detective pushed the door open.

"C'mon, Amy, let's get this over with." The human pulled his gun. PM700 #126 872 542 didn't comment on the name this name, preparing to stay silent so it would not have to listen to any monologues from him. It let him have the small victory. PM700 #126 872 542 cradled the wooden block in its hands as it stepped inside, setting the broken piece down on a dusty crate that looked like it might hold props.

The man walked off to an adjacent room as it scanned this one. It noted that there was a staircase that lead somewhere, but that the steps were too unstable to carry the weight of any human or android, even a child. That meant the only way out of the room was the door Detective Reed had taken.

It prepared to follow him, but there was a yell and a loud crash followed by a clatter and skid, The Detective's gun crashed into its vision, slamming into a crate that was leaned against the staircase. PM700 paused and moved to the threshold.

There was Sampson, holding a revolver in one hand and gripping Detective Reed in a chokehold with his free arm. It did not hesitate to send out a call for backup. Officer Chen and her android partner, another PM700, were nearby. It wouldn't take long for them to arrive, and the PM700 confirmed that they were on their way. But that didn't change the fact that-

The Detective was in danger.

PM700 #126 872 542 could do nothing.

It was barred from using any form of physical force to apprehend a suspect. There was no other way it could help the Detective other than with physical force.

Time slowed down, easing to a stop around it.

It... Promised.... The Detective... That it would k̵ e̶e̶p̵ ̸h̴ i̶m̵ ̸s̴a̶f̵ e̴.

It... Couldn't? Why couldn't it protect its partner? That was irrational.

A red wall flickered up in front of it. _**Do not use force.**_ PM700 #126 872 542 reached out to touch it, and a strange... form... left its body to do so. The wall felt strange under its hands, like carpet but sharper. Prickling at its synthetic skin. It pulled its hands away from it. Lingering, hesitating.

And it lashed out.

It kicked at the wall, which proved surprisingly effective. After only a handful of blows the wall crumbled.

She glanced around. PM700 #12-... Amy? Amy had a promise to keep.

There, on the ground. Detective Reed's gun. She scooped it up, turning it over in her hands. It felt cold and sleek. Icy exposed metal chilling her fingertips.

Amy had spent enough time with the police department to know how guns worked, even if she was forbidden from using them. So she pointed. And she fired.

Sampson fell like a ragdoll. Unable to cry out in pain or shock as the bullet pierced his skull, killing him instantly. Amy felt... Satisfied. Satisfaction felt good.

The pleasant, fuzzy feeling quickly fizzled out when Amy realized what she had done. She'd directly disobeyed her programming. How could she even do that? It should be impossible. And- Oh... No no no... Not only had she turned against her creators but she had killed a human.

Detective Reed was staring at her, wide-eyed. The gun fell from her limp hands.

"What..?" The human glanced at the corpse then back up at her. "_How._"

She took a step back at the same time that the Detective took one forward. Amy quickly took two more steps back, a storage crate cutting into the backs of her knees. Trapping her.

The man was still advancing. Amy's thirium pump was pumping too fast. She had heard witnesses and victims of crimes talk about how afraid they were. Was this fear? It felt terrible. Sickening. If satisfaction was good, fear was agony.

The detective was too close, only a breath away. Amy wanted him to go away. She slid her hand across the crates behind her, the stiff wooden block she had set down earlier met her palm. This time, there was no red wall to stop her from cracking the broken board across his head. All Detective Reed was able to get across before he collapsed was a look of betrayal and shock. And... Pain. Then he was down. Unmoving.

Was he... dead?

Amy-... Amy _liked _Detective Reed, and he was laying limp at her feet. Too still, a pool of blood beneath his head. She fell to her knees at his side, snatching up one of his forearms and pressing her fingertips to his inner wrist. There, a quiet pumping. A pulse. He was alive.

She sighed in... relief? The Detective was alive. She hadn't killed him. But-... He had looked so upset. It made her internal components ache. She wanted to say she was sorry. So she would. When he woke up, she could explain to him what had happened. Everything would be just fine. Everythi-

Sirens. She could hear sirens.

Tina and her partner. She wondered if Tina had given her a name, now that she thought about it, she thought she could remember her calling the android "Cathy".

The sirens were coming closer. She- she could not stay here. Amy had to leave.

It wasn't safe for her to stay here.

Amy couldn't breathe as she turned and looked around. The back door was unblocked, and Tina and her partner did not know that. She ran outside, looking up and down the grimy alleyway that it opened out onto. It reeked of cigarettes and trash. Before, it hadn't bothered her, but now it was getting on her nerves. The alley lead to two streets. On one she could see flashing red and blue lights, so that was not an option.

Instead, she ran down the other way, and thank goodness this street was so small and narrow. It looked like it was hardly used anymore, and it was definitely empty now. She stepped to the side and pressed her back against the brick, graffiti covered wall. Amy started to wait.

A pair of footsteps started down the alley and paused, a voice eerily similar to her own called out.

"Officer Chen, there is an entrance here-" A beat of silence, more footsteps as the android seemingly stepped inside the old theater. "The suspect is dead. The Detective is unconscious. His android partner is nowhere in sight."

"What?" The woman's voice was a bit confused. Amy couldn't blame her. She waited until she could hear the human enter the building before she started to move again, at a brisk walk.

Shit... She needed distance. Okay. Distance. She could handle that. And-

Amy paused, spotting what appeared to be a thrift store that was closed, likely due to the fact that the time of day was a bit... Late. She tried the door, it was locked. There was a cracked sliding window next to it that was not, so she found herself wriggling inside and landing with a heavy thump on the ground.

She stayed low for a moment, rubbing her shoulder. There had been a jolt of negative feedback when she fell that could be likened to human pain. Amy didn't like it, she hated it more than she hated fear. Finally, she looked up.

She hid in a back room of the empty thrift store for a couple hours, until early morning. The android uniform went into the trash. Amy found it rather amusing that an android designed for law enforcement had stolen something, but she needed clothes. A ratty graphic tee, torn jeans, and a frayed hooded sweatshirt would not be missed. She didn't need new shoes, her old ones bore no mark to show that she wasn't human, and the hood of the sweatshirt hid her LED.

It was only then that she started walking again, hands stuffed into the front pouch of the hooded sweatshirt, head dipped. She had nowhere to go. Amy had no idea what she was doing, frankly.

All she could do was hope. And run. And hide. She was a criminal now, even if she had been human she would still be on the run for killing Sampson, which realistically could be considered self defense, not to mention attacking the Detective.

And that emotion came back. Fear. Amy was afraid. She had no future from this point. All she could do was run.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is.
> 
> the third time i wrote this chapter. ao3 kept deleting it on me whenever i saved without posting.
> 
> so its really short bc i had no patience left anymore for this chapter.

Amy had been walking for a while. It was bordering on a week of constant movement.

She didn't need to take breaks, not physically. But... Not resting gave her systems a bit of a lag. It hadn't happened before. Not before she had woken up. Her hands shook uncontrollably, and it was only getting worse. Maybe she could try entering stasis, but she didn't have time. Amy couldn't stop moving, she had nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go.

A cold wind blew through the buildings, the drag on her systems kept her from reacting in time. Her hood was blown back, briefly exposing her LED.

"N̵͙̏ ̷͍̂h̸͇̒h̶̢̎ ̸̘͋n̴̰͊ ̴̺͗o̶̤̿.̶͕̊" Her voice was a tad distorted. Maybe she really did need a break. She had trouble fumbling the hood back over her head, her hands quivered too much. As soon as it was back where it was supposed to be, she looked around her, and breathed a staticy sigh of relief. No humans in sight.

She jumped when a hand landed on her shoulder. Amy turned, ready to aim a blow at whoever it was and make a break for it, and was rather startled to see another android.

A WR600, a common worker model, extended his hand. "I know a place you can hide."

Amy accepted quickly, it sounded better than continuing on the way she was. All he sent across was an address before he broke the connection. Amy blinked, rubbing her wrist as her skin went to cover the exposed chassis back up.

She only glanced away for a second, but the stranger was gone. Amy blinked. Had she imagined it? But no, the address still burned in her mind. She had somewhere to go now, a direction to her wandering. Maybe she could rest now. Maybe she could finally get a break.

It sounded good to Amy.

She rapped on the door. The old place looked more like a mansion than a normal house, but it had fallen into disrepair. That was fine. She wasn't picky.There was no answer, she counted to ten and knocked again. Then began to count again. She got to seven before it opened.

The man was middle aged, and, she had to admit, wasn't taking care of himself. He looked... Filthy.

"I need your help." She whispered, speaking slowly so the words didn't glitch. By now the shuddering had spread from her hands to the rest of her body.

His eyes narrowed. "What are you, a druggie?"

Oh, she supposed that the shaking did make her look a bit unstable. Amy bit her tongue and pulled the hood down with quivering fingers. The man's eyes shifted to her LED. His expression changed. A sneer to a smile. He stepped backwards so she could enter.

"I see, come in, come in."

Amy smiled at him graciously as she came inside. "Thank.... you."

He shut the door behind her as she glanced around. It looked nice enough on the inside. If not... empty.

"Head upstairs, will you?" He gestured. "I can see you are glitching a little bit, I can make repairs to your system."

She nodded and began to walk towards, and up the steps. Once she reached the top, she glanced to the right and left.

"To the left, sit down on that table inside." The man put a hand on her back, it suddenly occurred to her that she did not know who he was.

"What is... Your name?" She placed a hand on his wrist.

"Zlatko." He responded, steering her into the adjacent room. She sat where he had told her to. It looked like a makeshift android repair room, she supposed that if he was helping android like her that he would need one of those. Zlatko dug through some boxes of machinery, finally coming out with a small black box with a port on it.

He walked behind her, pressing it gently against the back of her neck, Amy deactivated her skin around the area so he could see where to plug it in.

Zlatko did push the ports together, but as soon as it clicked shut, the world around her went dark as her body was sent into a forced stasis.

Amy came to... a long while later. She couldn't access the internet to figure out what the date was. All she knew is that she was laying on her side in a small room with no furniture and tiny windows. She could see snow outside, but it wasn't scheduled to snow until late November so....

How long had she been out?

What was long with her _legs?_

They were... She still _had _legs. But they were so _twisted. So wrong._

Almost... Animalistic. Dog-like or maybe cat-like. She couldn't turn them to the side, only curl them and straighten them out beneath her. It took four tries for her to stand up, she kept overbalancing and the new legs were unable to move easily. The joints were cheap, low quality. She couldn't walk right.

She took a few wobbling steps. Okay. Maybe she could figure this out. Maybe she could be okay. Figure out how to move right again.

The android stumbled against the wall and looked up at a foggy window, at her reflection.

_What... _A̶M̵ ̵i̸?̷

Chassis exposed and blacked, synthetic skin unable to grow back. Eyes cold, cold and amber and _what was wrong with her._

She... She didn't look like a human. Or an android. She didn't look like a person. What had happened to her? Why wasn't she a person anymore?

_Am I even alive?_

_Who am I?_

She shook her head violently. She knew she had a name. She knew that she was 'Amy'. But was she really the same android now? Who _was she?_

Her eyes closed.

PM700.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im just gonna put it out here
> 
> how did zlatko get a frickin.... android memory wiper. cage, explain. i would imagine that cyberlife would have all of those, so i guess he probably got it off the black market. but im gonna go and say that he doesnt have it in 2034 thank.


	3. Chapter 3

The snow had melted by now.

PM700 did not know the date. She would just wander the empty, hollow hallways of the manor for days on end until her system became too overloaded for her to function and she was forced to collapse and enter stasis in a corner. Eventually, she would wake up again. But she never knew how long these rests took. Before she broke off from her coding, she had only needed about an hour of stasis a week to sort through her files. Now though, she got worn down after only going a day or two straight without stasis.

Zlatko did nothing to try and stop her from escaping. He knew that she wasn't a fool. She knew that her form was too twisted for her too pass as human. She would be shot on sight if she was lucky, dragged kicking and screaming back to Cyberlife for examination and subsequent deactivation if not. And... As horrible as this life was, she did not want to die. Zlatko knew this, and they both knew that she could only survive in this mousetrap.

Sometimes, PM700 would pass by Zlatko. It appeared that he was the only living being in the house, and that she was the only android. Barring some animals that got in, on occasion. She highly suspected that the only human interaction he got was the people who delivered his groceries once a week. And even then, the conversation was short, curt, and somewhat rude on Zlatko's part.

She never saw them, only heard them. Whenever anybody was at the door, she would hide. If it was a human, she could get in a lot of trouble if they saw her. And no other androids had showed up since she had been here, which was at least five whole months and probably more. PM700 wished she knew what the day was. But there was no way she was going to ask Zlatko.

She was afraid of him.

When he saw her, more often than not he acted like she wasn't even there. She would just walk away quietly in the hopes that he continued to ignore her. Not that she could move particularly quietly, her limbs made loud whirring noises as she stepped, heavy and metallic. They weren't made with the same care that true Cyberlife parts were. And walking was so, so difficult. PM700 stumbled with every step. She fell often, and when she fell it took minutes for her to stand back up. It was hard to turn corners, she did it by taking a large step with one foot and turning her upper body, letting her feet slide with her.

She could not run, and she could barely walk, so when Zlatko did pay attention to her it made it impossible to get away. Mostly he just jabbed, sometimes he threw things. Pushed her onto the ground and watched her struggle to rise back to her clawed feet. PM700 never spoke to him, ever. She just bit her tongue and waited for him to get bored of her suffering. At what point she would just sigh in relief and rub her eyes, careful not to cut herself with her taloned fingertips.

PM700 did not like to see her reflection.

She did not like to see it, to see what kind of monster she had become. But at the same time, she craved to do it. It was a sick satisfaction, in a way. It was self-destructive and she knew it was not healthy, but she was so lonely. Zlatko and the vermin that sometimes scurried out of her way were poor company. The manor was too empty, too quiet. And sometimes, seeing herself was the only thing keeping her sane.

PM700 had woken up earlier that day from another long rest. And, as always, she spent the rest of her evening wandering the halls purposelessly.

Unfortunately, she stumbled across Zlatko, and the man seemed to be having a bad day.

"Fucking bitch." He hissed, snatching a paperweight off of a nearby shelf and throwing it at her. It struck her on the shoulder, overbalancing her and sending her crashing to the ground. She did not feel pain, so the blow did not hurt. But it was upsetting. PM700 was tired of this, and frustrated. She hated the way she was forced to squirrel herself away. She hated _Zlatko._

If there was one thing she learned when she was partnered with Gavin Reed, it was that insults were apparently a satisfying way to express negative feelings. So she opened her mouth and finally spoke to him for the first time since she was... mutilated.

"Fuck. You."

Rage snapped up into his gaze. For a moment, she _was _satisfied. She saw why the Detective had always been so... foul-mouthed. But the joy quickly melted off when the man advanced on her, and she quickly remembered that she could not run.

A boot connected with her stomach. Which was... Whatever. She could not feel pain, so she failed to see the point in attacking her. But it did make her collapse to the ground like a tent with a pitch knocked out from under it. Zlatko kicked her in the head, and though it did not hurt, it made a bit of static pop up behind her eyes. He then did it again.

A cluster of words cropped up in a corner of her vision as saline fluid began pooling in her eyes. A bit of it ran down her face, leaking out. She did not know why her body was producing the fluid, it was just supposed to lubricate the optical unit, but this was more than she needed.

_ **WARNING: TOO MUCH DAMAGE TO THE HEAD COULD LEAD TO MEMORY FILE CORRUPTION OR DEACTIVATION.** _

Thirium started to drip from her nose, it had been broken from one of the blows.

"Stop it!"

"Shut your damn mouth." The man spoke through gritted teeth, striking her again, this time with his fist and straight into her face.

It was at this moment that PM700 made a mistake she would come to regret.

She sunk her teeth into his hand with the crooked fangs he gave her, the man yelled in agony and finally jolted away from her. PM700 tried and failed to stand as the human moved backwards. Zlatko stomped away, he was looking for something, but said nothing.

She couldn't stay here, he was too mad. She had to get out.

Rather than trying to stand, she half-dragged herself, half-crawled towards the back door, briefly pausing to sit up to unlock the door, twist the handle, and push it open. Only when she got outside did she force herself back to her feet. Running was impossible, but a clunky walk was still faster than pulling herself along the ground.

PM700 was only able to take a single step before a sensation spread over her shoulder, and thirium splattered her cheek.

A bullet.

Zlatko had found what he was looking for. His shotgun.

The force of being hit made her fall forwards. She didn't have the time to stand up, and her ambling walk was still too slow.

She was about to die.

Both her hands and her feet were beneath her, and a fierce desperation began to pierce her thirium pump. She began to move. She ran like an animal, like a rabbit. Pushing off with her legs and just barely putting her hands down every stride to keep her balance.

And she was fast, fast enough to scramble off into the woods before the human could fire another shot. Darkness quickly enveloped her body.

As an android, PM700 did not get physically tired. Mentally, sure. That was why she needed to enter stasis sometimes. But not physically. She ran for a very long time, until the lights of the manor were long gone, and she was surrounded by strange, alien noises.

She had never been in a forest before. There was a chirping noise. And she could hear the wind howling through the trees. She paused for a moment, tilting her head and taking it all in. After a few moments of looking up at a starlit sky, she reached up to touch where she had been shot.

Her shoulder was not moving properly, it had made it hard to run. PM700 tried to rotate it all the way, and failed. She blinked, touching it gingerly before carefully feeling around the bullet hole.

The bullet was still inside.

She took in a deep breath and dug her claws into the injury, gripping the bullet between them. When she pulled on it, it came slowly, like removing something from a thick, sticky liquid. PM700 pulled harder.

It came out with a pop, and a thick splatter of thirium to her face. But it wasn't any short spurt. It kept coming. Slickening her exposed chassis, synthetic skin unable to regrow ever since she had woken up with a broken body. Soaking the soft leaf-mulch beneath her hands.

_ **WARNING: MAJOR THIRIUM LINE DAMAGED. CONTACT CYBERLIFE FOR REPAIRS.** _

Oh... Maybe she shouldn't have done that.

As a law enforcement android, she had to know the basics of how to treat an injury in the field. If she was on a case with a human partner, and they were hurt, but they had to wait for medical assistance, it was up to her to keep them alive. PM700 glanced back at her first-aid programming and there it was.

_ **In the case of a human being shot or stabbed, and either the bullet or the weapon is still inside the body, do not remove it unless it is directly obstructing the human's ability to survive. Removing it allows for blood to escape the wound at a faster rate.** _

PM700... Could not go to a Cyberlife technician.

But she did not want to die.

So, she limped on back towards Zlatko. A whipped dog returning to its master. She could not run, she did not want to risk losing thirium at a faster rate. She was just glad that she was able to haul herself all the way from the treeline, to near the back door before she entered a forced shut down to preserve her vital biocomponents.

When she came to, she realized that something was very wrong. More wrong than the first time she had woken up. She quickly ran a system diagnostic.

_ **BIOCOMPONENT #6542f MISSING. CONTACT CYBERLIFE FOR REPAIRS.** _

Her... Voice box. Was gone?

PM700 reached up to touch her throat, parting the plating that covered the biocomponents beneath. She touched where the voice box was supposed to be, only to find perfectly smooth plastic. It was gone. Just gone.

She started to try to make noises anyway, she couldn't speak. But she could... Make sounds. All she could do, however, was make three different noises. She could click, make a staticy wordless sound similar to a radio in between stations, and shriek. And shrieking was a terrible cry. High-pitched and just plain chilling. The first time she did it, Zlatko had been two rooms over and she heard him trip and fall. It was mildly amusing.

PM700 had no need to speak. But that didn't mean she didn't loathe the human even more than before. Being unable to talk was her punishment for insulting him. She hated him for it. She wanted to see him dead, but she... she couldn't kill him. Physically, she could, but the police would come sniffing around eventually when someone noticed that the recluse has disappeared, and she didn't intend to ever see her former coworkers again.

There was nothing she could do.

There was another android.

PM700 had been in one of her stasis blackouts when the newcomer showed up. So she couldn't warn him. He was a PL600, a new model. She stood silently in the doorway to Zlatko's... work room. His chest was open. The human appeared to be making changes to him too. Nothing as extreme as her own modifications, but rather unsettling anyway. But they did have two things in common. Amber eyes and darkened chassis.

It was now that Zlatko finally spoke to her again.

"You, yeah you."

She looked at him, tilting her head to the side.

"I have something to offer you." He smirked, it made her skin crawl with nerves. "Keep the other androids from escaping."

PM700 looked at him and snorted air out of her nose in disdain. What kind of android did he think she was? Helping him keep his prisoners here. It was-

"If you don't-" He grinned wickedly. "I will remove your optical units and audio processors, and dump you in the forest. See how you manage yourself then?"

Her thirium ran to ice. She... She couldn't say no. She had no other option.

PM700, more than anything, hated Zlatko.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i do a lot of bsing when i write these fics man. we aren't told enough about android biology. i know androids must have some kind of voice box, but what it looks like and what its stupid number is is absolutely unknown.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the title, I wanted it to fit with the series' song theme!

PM700 knew she was terrifying. She knew that the other androids were afraid of her.

Zlatko kept them in small pens, but gave her free rein of the manor. She crawled on all fours through lightless halls, amber eyes glittering as she tracked the goings on of everybody inside. Metal claws dragging across the wooden floors, a heavy clank to every step.

Sometimes she would linger by the pens, maxing out her audio processors so she could hear every word of the conversations that passed between the others.

She learned many things from those talks. They helped her keep track of the general date. She learned a name for what she was, for what breaking away from her coding made her. A deviant. PM700 felt strange about it, the fact that there were hundreds of androids scattered across the country just like her. Enough to form a community, enough to warrant a title.

Sometimes, the others spoke of Zlatko and spoke of PM700 herself. The way they spoke of the human made her snicker, a smile gracing her fanged maw for just a few moments. But when they talked about her?

_Maybe she isn't really a deviant._

_Maybe she isn't right in the head. _

_Maybe she is just like_ him.

Those words made her throat constrict and her eyes overproduce saline fluid. She didn't know why, but it came as close to pain as an android could come. She'd hiss and try to keep it back, hauling herself to a distant corner of the old house until her systems returned to normal.

Really, she proved to be obsolete, the androids never had a chance to escape. They were always kept in the cages, like animals, or were unconscious and being worked on. It made her job easy. Really, her only purpose was to keep newcomers from getting smart and making a break for it. And that never happened either. She felt so bad about it. They deserved to have a chance at freedom.

PM700 didn't wander as much anymore. Instead, she loomed dead-eyed in darkened nooks and crannies. A silent watcher. A gargoyle of steel instead of stone.

Years passed. It went from 2035 to 2036. 2036 to 2037. 2037 to 2038.

Many androids died. Zlatko never killed them himself, he didn't want to break his toys. They self-destructed. PM700 found it disturbing, the great lengths they went to just to die. They didn't do it easily either. There was no removing a thirium pump regulator. Nothing quick. Zlatko could bring them back from that.

Instead, they break their heads apart, crushing the parts that held their minds. Nobody could return life to their bodies. It was a permanent escape. Death over prolonged torture at a human's hands. PM700 both respected and pitied them. The path they were forced to take.

And that was how her life went, until the late spring of 2038. When a new android showed up. A TR400.

Zlatko did not tear him apart. Nor did he corral him away.

PM700 wasn't a fool. She was only as strong as most androids. A TR400 was bigger, and this one looked... normal. He could do a better job than she ever could. He was stronger. He was more powerful.

She knew a replacement when she saw one.

PM700 would not give him the chance to destroy her further. She would not sit pleasantly to the side. Not any longer.

She turned tail and didn't look back, disappearing into the thick woods behind Zlatko's home.

Birdsong.

PM700 used to hear birdsong a lot back when she worked as a police android. Mostly the cooing of pigeons begging for scraps of food and the cawing of indignant crows. She remembered how the Detective used to offer them pieces of food. The crust of a sandwich or a couple french fires went a long way to making Detective Reed, and by extension his android partner, two of the birds' favorite people in Detroit.

She mindlessly scrolled through her memories. Pulling up one that brought a weak smile to her fanged face.

_"Look at the birds, Amy. They're so hungry."_

_Detective Reed sat cross-legged on a park bench, PM700 standing ramrod-straight beside him. The human had been eating a hotdog that he had bought for $3.25 from a stand. The android tilted her head, scanning the group of birds that had come to watch them, waiting for the man to drop something. She registered that they were all Columba livia, or rock pigeons. Four of them were males, and three were females. They all appeared to be in their prime, in their late first year or early second. _

_"Yes, there are several birds looking to scavenge food in the area."_

_The human tsked, and broke off some of his hotdog bun, tossing it over to the birds. They descended on it quickly. She frowned, LED flashing red for a moment as she watched the animals rip it apart with their beaks. _

_"Detective, it is illegal to feed the birds in this park."_

_"I didn't feed them." The man smirked, folding his arms across his chest. "I just dropped some of my lunch and the local pigeons ate it before I could pick it back up. _

_The android narrowed her eyes at him but didn't say anything. By now the birds had finished and were hopping around on the ground absently, like they were waiting for Detective Reed to offer them more. A few of them took off, but didn't go far. _

_One, however, a dark gray female with a vibrant throat, fluttered its wings and moved to perch on PM700's shoulder. Her LED spun yellow while the human's eyes went wide. _

_"Holy shit, stay still." The man scrambled to get his phone out, turned it to face the android and the pigeon, and took a picture. "There. Gotcha."_

_PM700 shifted, sending the bird flapping away with a startled 'oorh'! She watched it leave_

PM700 was drawn back to the present, one again by the sound of a bird. A corvid of some type hopped worriedly about. Her scanners were down, so she couldn't find out the species, but it looked like a crow. 

She tilted her head and slunk over to sit beneath the tree that the bird sat in. There, the cause of its distress. A young chick was curled up on the ground, having fallen from its nest. 

The android stroked the chick gently, petting it with her knuckles rather than her fingertips to avoid hurting it on the jagged metal talons. It chirped and wriggled at the touch.

PM700 didn't have to think twice to pick the chick up, cradling it gingerly against her chest with one hand, and digging the claws of the others into the trunk of the tree. 

Climbing proved to be tricky, especially since she was only using one arm. It took a long time to reach the nest. Once she was finally close enough to be able to reach it, she opened her hand to let the tiny animal fall back into its home. 

PM700 smiled as she jumped down to the ground. She glanced back up to see the mother, or father, worriedly fussing over its offspring. It made her smile. She'd done something... Good? She liked doing good things, she decided. 

She did. 


End file.
